WOW it’s 2019! I still have not gotten used to dating off things with 2019, and have caught myself several times writing 2018. Anywho, I hope you had a wonderful 2019 and that you are as motivated as we are to start the new year.

This year, although I have goals of my own that I am going to share, as a couple we have goals of our own as well that i’m including.

Wake up Early

This is hard when you are not a natural morning person. Since leaving before the holidays, its been very hard to get back into waking up early. When I do, I LOVE IT. I feel my most productive, purposeful, and happy. I have enjoyed when I wake up by 6 or even 5:30am, brew some coffee, and start targeting my to-do list for the day. It is truly the best feeling. However, it’s the habit that I find always the most difficult.

Self Care

Earlier last year I was getting into yet another habit, which was meditation. I was using guidance meditation via an app, then switched over to putting on some soft music, while I took time to focus on the sounds around me, my breathing, and taking in the day. I also felt happy, focused, and most of all refreshed. I learned that I need to do this again. Meditation doesn’t even have to be 20 or 30 minutes long. It can be as short as 5 minutes! I was meditating for about 5-7 minutes max, and that helped me so much! We all have 5-7 minutes to spare, so why not spend it on ourselves? You deserve some self care time.

Self care for me also means cleanliness. When we arrived home from our holiday with family, the next morning I was up my 8ish am and cleaned all day. I felt GOOD. WE felt great. I would like to practice putting things back in it’s place, instead of throwing them all over the place.

Lastly, Self care is also exercise. I have completely let that go. I know it’s because my lifestyle has changed, and I am working harder now more than ever. However, I need to start running again. I think whatever type of exercise you choose to do, as long as you are moving your body for more than 30 minutes a day or a few times a week is better than nothing. I have been doing nothing, and that needs to change.

Domestic Travel

We are hoping to discover a little bit more within the U.S. We got a few places that we really want to visit, and hope we can tackle a few this year. Ivan is an academic counselor, and so he has holidays off as well as most of the Summer. We are planners so we need to budget, and plan ahead of time to make things happen. One of the things that we are trying to do is have a list of places we want to visit in front of us so that we don’t lose sight of where we want some of our expenses to go. Let’s admit, it’s SO easy to spend on things such as home decor, clothes, accessories, going out to eat especially and other things that come along the way. However this year, we want to keep our eye on the prize so to speak. I recently pinned our goals to travel within the U.S. on my vision board so I can stay focused.

Experiences vs Stuff

This is a bit of a reiteration of what I mentioned previously. For so long i’ve spent on stuff. The last few months of 2018, I started to switch my mentality to spend more on experiences rather than things. Hence why you might have seen a shift on my instagram where I try to include life photos and not all about fashion. I love fashion, and always will but i’m trying harder to mix and match and just purchase a few pieces a month rather than a whole wardrobe of things.

Grow my business

A craft I’ve been working on for a while! it’s true what they say, a business takes time and growing takes even longer! I’ve learned SO much about myself the past few years. I can seriously write a whole blog about finding myself as an entrepreneur. In 2016 I took a course that taught me how to find my passion and showed me how to develop an online e-course. I don’t have an e-course because at the time (and even today) that’s not my objective, but it was a great way to introduce a type of business perhaps can work someday. The e-course did, however, help me find what I want to do for the next 5 years (maybe even more but we’ll see how things develop). I guess you can say I literally did some MAJOR soul searching. I wrote in journals, I mapped out my entire business, I wrote the things I was good at, my experiences, my ideal audiences… I mean everything. It has been life changing and I haven’t been the same person since. I knew that starting my own business would take time, so as I was literally planning my wedding in 2017, working full time, working on my blog, I would side hustle on focusing and developing my business. Now today, I have a client who I am conducting business with and looking for a few more clients to work with this year. I know, I know i’m being vague with what I”m doing and perhaps one day I will spill all details to you but just know it’s within my background of Marketing!

Blogger Goals

Utilize YouTube

I was so driven last year to use YouTube and I didn’t do much with it as I would of liked. Honestly, I am not too sure what content I want to put out yet, or if people would even take an interest. I still have this as a goal so it’s something i’ll work on this year to find how I want to use YouTube for my blog.

DFW Latina Bloggers

I feel so much better about the direction of this group! This year we are trying something a little different this year and hosting monthly meet ups to discuss (and hold accountable) our blog goals. I’m so excited about this! We are also having some girls in the group present on topics they are experts in. This group as been a work in progress, and I couldn’t be happier with continuing to give back to this community.

Practice Instant photos

This, I feel, is key to my blog success! I wish and I want to post photos as they happen the day of. This is something that doesn’t come natural to me as I don’t always have something interesting going on everyday. However, I admire bigger bloggers who do this, and I can see how much it’s helped them grow when they post more in real time. It’s something I want to definitely practice!